Nigerians get Moderna COVID vaccines, which were donated by the US

Health workers in Nigeria on Monday started to vaccinate people with the Moderna COVID-19 as the country aims to protect its population amid a surge of infections.

Africa’s most populous nation has been able to vaccinate only about 1.23% of its population, according to Africa CDC, as it continues to see a spike in infection rates driven by the highly infectious Delta variant.

 According to Saad Ahmed, virologist; "One, it helps to prevent infections but even if one gets infected, then the impact of that infection is likely to be much less than somebody who has not been vaccinated at all. So, we have all seen COVID-19 and the numbers that are been rolled out, the mortality figures and what have you, so definitely we need the vaccination."

Nigeria with more than 210 million people earlier this month received 4 million Moderna doses donated by the U.S.

Chikwe Ihekweazu, Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, says much efforts have been put in place to have the population vaccinated.

"We depend on an incredible groups of Nigerians that have been working hard for the last eighteen-months to deliver vaccines, to test people, to do contact tracing, to treat individuals. Our treatment centres are filling up again, health workers are working through the nights everyday making sure they save Nigerians."

Authorities expect a further delivery of more than 29 million Johnson & Johnson doses purchased by the government through the African Union.